REAL LIFE NEWS: CATS CAN RECOGNISE YOUR VOICE – BUT THEY DON’T CARE
by Hazed
Here’s another news story I found that’s illustrated with a picture of Grumpy Cat, one of those feline internet stars. This time it concerns the way cats evolved to live with humans.
A study in Japan has confirmed what most cat owners have always known: that cats just don’t give a damn about their owners. While the good news is that it shows that pet cats are capable of recognising their owner’s voices, the bad news is that they choose to ignore them.
The study from the University of Japan tested twenty housecats in their own homes. The scientists waited until the owner was out of the room, then played recordings of three strangers calling the cats names, followed by their owner, followed by another stranger.
Then the researchers analysed the cats’ behaviour in response to these calls. They measured a number of factors including the movement of the cats’ ears, tail and head, their vocalization, their eye dilation and whether they shifted their paws as if they were going to move.
The results show that when the cats heard their names called, they moved their heads and ears about to locate where the sound was coming from. They did show a greater response to their owners’ voices than those of strangers, but they didn’t actually make a move for any of the calls.
The scientists suggest that the reason for this indifference to their owners could be traced back to the way they were domesticated in the early days of the interaction between the species and with humans. Unlike dogs, where humans actively bred and trained them to become useful companions, cats simply moved in with humans to prey on the rodents that were attracted to stores of grain as early civilizations developed agriculture. In other words, they domesticated themselves.
